Vegas 3.0c and MOTU 2408 MKII Recording Problems

Fader2000 wrote on 11/12/2002, 9:54 PM
After searching the entire forum for any posting that could solve my problem I am now turning to the users to help out. First the problem. I've been using Vegas for a few years now and love the program. I just recently became the engineer at a small digital studio that is running Vegas 3.0c with a MOTU 2408 audio card. I am able to record at 44.1k 16bit (most of the time) but the machine crashes when I try to go to 48K 24bit. I can sometimes get it to work for a bit and then it'll just freeze. This is the computers set-up:

Hardware:
Pentium 4 1.4Ghz
ASUS PT4 Motherboard Intel 850 chipset
256M RDRam
Maxtor 40 and 60 gig 7200 RPM Hardrives
ATI Radeon 7500 Dual Display video card (catalyst 2.3)
Roland UM-1 USB Midi interface
Soundblaster Live Value
Linksys USB100TX Network card

Software:
Vegas 3.0c
Soundforge 6.0
Audiograbber 1.8
Sonar 2 XL
Microsoft Office
Gigastudio 160 v2.5
Norton Utilities 2002

I have installed all the latest drivers for all the hardware as well as the intel ATA storage driver for the motherboard and a bios upgrade. I have heard multiple times that the MOTU stuff sucks for the PC however it was an excellent choice to go with the Tascam DM-24 console that has 24 TDIF I/O built into it. Any help would be appreciated.

Comments

Geoff_Wood wrote on 11/13/2002, 5:28 AM
Mine works just fine. Are you sure you hane the check box ticked for Classic Wave Driver in the MOTU console ?

Alternatively you could have a chipset (or mobo) that is problematical with the PCI324, though I think the i850 should be OK. MOTU PC tech support seem to have got better since they decided to get real, fix the drivers , etc.

Also try disabling all unused input in the console, to reduce bus bandwidth rqd.

geoff
Fader2000 wrote on 11/13/2002, 7:08 AM
I checked "classic wave driver" in Vegas but I wasn't aware there was anything to check off in the MOTU console. I will also be maxing out all inputs and outputs at some point so I need to base it on that scenario. I need to get this thing rock solid before I commit to it. I really like the Vegas-MOTU-Tascam combo but if there is even a hint of instability I'll be forced to change. Do you think it's a hardware conflict or software?
pwppch wrote on 11/13/2002, 10:15 AM
What version of Windows are you running?

Peter
Geoff_Wood wrote on 11/13/2002, 6:00 PM
MOTU console check box = bottom LHS.
Fader2000 wrote on 11/14/2002, 6:34 AM
windows 98 se
pwppch wrote on 11/14/2002, 4:39 PM
Ther was a known issue with the MOTU Win9X drivers that caused this. Are you sure you have the latest drivers from MOTU?

There is also a bug in Win9X that prevents 24 bit from working correctly. There is a patch from MS, but you have to "request" it from them. I don't even know if they make this available as 98SE is very legacy to MS. Let me check, but make sure you have the latest drivers for the MOTU.

Peter


Fader2000 wrote on 11/16/2002, 9:14 AM
Peter, thanks for your help. I have installed the latest drivers for the MOTU 2408 and I followed their strict guidlines for it's installation. I managed to also get it on it's own IRQ. I had some success with this and I was able to record 24 simultaneous 24bit 48K tracks. However, when I went to close Vegas it crashed. I am desperate to have this system a solid as possible. I don't want to be the one behind the console when this system crashes and there is an important client watching. I will continue to experiment and I will report all successes and failures. Any help you can give me to make this system as crash-proof as possible would be very much appreciated.
Cold wrote on 11/16/2002, 4:49 PM
Be aware of partial crashes too. I've had my motu 2408 not quite translate all of the tracks properly but seem to be working well. ex. Recorded a drum kit with 10 mics, didn't seem to have any issues while recording, but on playback found that the tracks were not properly locked to the clock. by this I mean the tracks would seem to speed up and slow down by several samples about a dozen times over the course of a 4 minute song! The stereo pairs would remain locked but each set of stereo pairs would slide back and forth by several samples! I've had this happen on several occaisions. Trust me its a nightmare if you don't catch this right off the bat and do a reboot. litterally hours of manual drum track alignment per song to fix this.
So the moral, do some testing for this issue as well ( I use a high hat/snare drum machine loop multed across all channells to test for this issue now before doing drum recording sessions). You may never come across this problem at all, but then again better safe than sorry.
Steve
RikTheRik wrote on 11/16/2002, 7:41 PM
Why don't you upgrade your system to Win2000 or XP ?
Win98SE is well known to be unstable and with Win2000 or XP you would not need to be anxious about a blue screen anymore !!
pwppch wrote on 11/16/2002, 8:55 PM
I will have to aggree with SonicErik on this. The MOTU drivers seem to be far from perfect on Win9X where as on Win2000 and XP the problematic behavior does not exist.

George Ware: Are you lurking? I know you use the MOTU hardware extensively.

Peter
MacMoney wrote on 11/16/2002, 9:40 PM
Sorry im late, VERY long day!
I have the 1296 and 2408 so far XP Pro seems to be the best OS no crashes, win98se had the BSOD and beware of the Waves 2.8 dongle and MOTU they don't like each other. I know a guy called Scott Reams you can find him on the Cakewalk news group who builds turn key systems with MOTU hardware. He know about some mobo combo the have problems the MOTU gear. please drop me a line I would be happy to go over your set up.

George
Fader2000 wrote on 11/17/2002, 2:10 PM
I'm going to create a dual-boot system with 98SE and XP Pro. There are a few apps that I use that don't play well with XP, Gigastudio being one of them. I have tried using XP with the MOTU card before with not very good results. However, I am now armed with so much more information than I was 2 weeks ago that I think I can make it go. Because Vegas does not use WDM drivers I'll be forced to use the Wave drivers. If anybody has any info or tips on using the MOTU 2408 in XP Pro please help out an engineer who's down on his luck. I'll be making the jump to XP Pro this week and I'll keep you posted on my progress. I'll be creating restore points along the way so I can fall back if a plug-in or app screws up the system. Is there any particular order that I should follow when installing the software and hardware? My system details are at the top of this thread. Thanks in advance.
Fader2000 wrote on 11/17/2002, 3:49 PM
I downloaded the chipset utility and the application accelerator from the Intel website. Do any of these conflict with either the MOTO 2408 or Vegas 3.0c?
MacMoney wrote on 11/17/2002, 4:35 PM
I don't know I had my system blew out about 2-3 weeks ago and my tech loaded ALL new drivers and firmware to everything.
Here is Room A system

Studio A
P4 1.7Ghz
w/1024mb ECC PC800 ram
GeForce MXX400 Video w/64Mb Ram
Intel D850GB 2Ghz Motherboard
Adaptec Ultra 160 SCSI card 29160
Seagate Cheetah Ultra 160 SCSI 15,00rpm HD 18.4Gb (FAT32 Rec)
Seagate EIDE 7200rpm 20Gb (NTFS OS)
Buslink 2.0 40/80Gb Ext USB-2.0 HD for samples and loops (FAT32)
Sony DVD+RW/CD-RW
Memorex 48x10x40x40 CDRW
MOTU-1296 v2 w/1ea. I/O
MOTU-2408 v2 w/2ea. I/O's
MOTU Midi Timepiece AV PC
WinXP Pro sp1 (Standard PC mode)

PIII 800E
w/512Mb PC100
PCI S3 Video w/32Mb Ram
Delta MP2-BX-X 100MHz Buss PCI/ISA Motherboard
AdaptecAHA-2940 Ultra PCI SCSI Card
Seagate 40GB Seagate EIDE Hard Drive
Creative DVD Ram
40X AKUE-IDE CD Rom
Yamaha 24x10x40 CDRW
Darla 20 5.06
MOTU FastLane USB PC
WinXP Pro sp1 (Standard PC mode)

(I hope thats right)

George